Update: Related to this story, feast your eyes on Newegg's deal of the day, with a reference, standard Sapphire RX Vega 64 for $689.99 with two "free" games. I don't think I've ever seen such a conturbated launch as this. Also, considering the scope and content of the article, I will be updating the tag for this piece as an Editorial.

There has been somewhat of an uproar in recent times regarding AMD's lack of clarity on pricing of their newly-launched Vega 64. While AMD themselves told reviewers and consumers that their RX Vega graphics cards would be available for $399 (Vega 56) and $499 (Vega 64), recent events have, at the very least, cast some doubts on Vega's supposedly clean-cut pricing. Some popular reviewers and YouTubers have even gone so far as to say they won't be accepting any more samples from AMD due to a perceived slight at the erroneous information provided by the company; when someone reviews and analyses a product based on a fixed price-point advanced by a company, and then that pricing seems to have turned out nothing more than smoke and mirrors... People's work is put out the window.

Now, AMD has come out to put rumors of false Vega pricing announcements to rest. Except the skeptic in me remains, well... skeptic. Here's what AMD has said: "Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."Do you agree with me when I say that AMD isn't committing to a base $499 pricing for RX Vega 64? Expressions like "limited launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499" don't really clear the air as to when (if) such pricing will be restocked. At best, AMD seems to only be saying that they'll restock some token offerings for their RX Vega graphics cards, if nothing else, simply looking to curb doubts on RX Vega's MSRP. Yes, it does start at $499 - but there is no true availability at that pricing, because AMD only restocks limited quantities at that pricing through (apparently) rebates and other offerings to retailers. And AMD left a crystal clear sentence of "we'll be restocking Vega SKUs at the announced $499 pricing" conspicuously absent.

The issue is that multiple retailers have come out, one way or another, to say that AMD have, in fact, issued changes to the RX Vega 64's retail pricing. OC UK's Andrew Gibson (Gibbo), the source we quoted in our first story that put forward some doubts on AMD's real RX Vega pricing intentions, gave KitGuru some clarifications on his initial claims on OC UK's forums: "Launch price was $499 with NO games for the Black card, as outlined to us by AMD as a launch only price. AMD allowed us to sell a set amount at this price, which was several hundred, clearly not enough as they were sold out in approximately 15 minutes. After this the regular price was $599 with FREE games for both the black and silver cards, $699 for the aqua card plus taxes." Another retailer, this time Norwegian komplett.no, also said that AMD's RX Vega 64 stock to be sold at MSRP $499 was limited to 275, as the company was "allowed to sell at a favorable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again."

OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum." The retailer representative also went on to say that "Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they'd be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we've sold a little over 1000."

Over at Gamers Nexus, Steve Burke has voiced what sources inside the retailer family have been quietly putting out: that AMD did allow retailers to sell limited quantities of the RX Vega 64 SKU at $499 through time and quantity-limited rebates so as to allow retailers to sell part of their Vega 64 cards at AMD's announced pricing. AMD's Radeon Packs have apparently seen the highest alocation of Vega graphics cards on AMD's part, because this allows the company to recoup their losses at selling RX Vega 64 - and soon, RX Vega 56 - at their announced MSRP. It seems that AMD's BOM for their monolithic, 484 mm² dies and exotic HBM2 memory (as well as R&D expenses, naturally) have increased RX Vega's manufacturing cost to the point where (sources are claiming; take this with a grain of salt) AMD loses more than $100 on each RX Vega consumer card sold. Perhaps it's only a coincidence that Vega's retailer pricing increase covers both AMD's estimated manufacturing costs, as well as retailer's margins. Perhaps not. But there has been enough smoke dotting the aftermath of Vega's rise that it's likely there is fire.